YouOnlyLiveOnce

A little work might improve your look slightly, but you have good hair as it sits. If I had your hair, I could live my l life day to day without worry about loss. Granted, my loss is worse so its easy for me to say that. Its hard to say how meds are working for you. I tried them when I was younger and felt they werent working so I decided to quit.. I've thinned out up front and a little over the top and who knows if the meds would have prevented any of this. if I were you, Id keep on the meds and skip the transplant for now.

was there any grafts placed into the mid scalp? if not, whats the plan for that? it appears you're a diffuse thinner. Are you currently on propecia? If so, have you responded well? If not, do you plan to get on it? I ask because I recently started FIN and I hope it helps me maintain what I have. I had a procedure about a week before you. Our loss is a bit different but it will be nice to track your progress with mine.

I wouldnt go to anyone without proven results. I remember reading an old post where someone was quoted saying he's been trying to incorperate FUE into his practice but has held off recently due to less than expected results. Things may or may not have changed by now, but its deff something to think about and research.

4k grafts on a nw6 will deff give you some change but if you're looking for the illusion of having a decent head hair that probably wont do it. I'd be hesitant going to any clinic that had a history of unhappy patients. Just remember, you oly have so many shots at this. Its nice to get the best deal possible but once your donor runs out, is out. Ask any of the guys that are getting repaired. I bet they'd wish they either saved up a little longer or travelled a little further to a reputable doc oppose to staying local. Since you have limited donor, thats possibly the the reason for 2 sessions of 2k oppose to one big one, they may not be able to harvest a single session of 4k grafts and that also might be why they only recommend 4k instead of 6-7k. If I were you, I'd do a little more research and have a consultation with a few other clinics. Even online consultation if that's your only option. Being a nw6 with limited donor supply is deff not the best equation when diving into this. I'm not trying to steer you away from having your transplant but you need to consider all the variables. Once you go under the knife, that scar is sticking with you for life. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I'd see Hasson & Wong or Dr. Rahal if I were limiting my choice to canada only

I chose Dr Hasson for my transplant. I did this based on my goals and what I fee is a good long term approach that their clinic offers. It would be near impossible to have your transplant go undetected unless you're able to wear a hat. I'm about 3 weeks out and if my head were shaved it would be completely apparent I had a transplant. Luckily for me, I had a week off, went back to work for 2 weeks then was laid off which will probably last through the winter into early springs, plenty of recovery time. Good luck with your choice.

balh blah blah

I works. I had it done on my neck hair becuase I hated shaving there. Just look in the phone book or online for places in your area. My package was $79 for 6 treatments on an online special I've found

through life you'll always have these types of decisions. You have to weigh your options and decide whats best for you

You really have to do your research when doing a hair transplant. An inexperienced doc can leave you with poor results, but even worse, you could be waisting precious grafts from your limited donor supply. Good luck man.

I read somewhere recently where a paitent paid 90.00 from a local HT surgeon to have his staples removed. You can actually have a family member or friend do it. Thats what I plan to do. Dr. Hasson gave me a staple remover so my gf will remove mine when the time comes. Its not super technical but with 80ish staples they're will probably be a few that are painful.

you can alwasy blur out the face. At 41, if you have minimal loss then you might be a good candiate for lowering your hairline and dense packing assuming you have good coverage elsewhere. you only have so much hair back there to move up front. if you use too much if it up front then recede way back, you might have a nice packed frontal hairline with barely any coverage behind. at 41 depending on how you look right now, that might not be a concern to you

The best surgeon is very subjective. It all depends on where you're at now, where you want to be, and how bad it will get in the future. I chose Dr hasson because he has proven results all of the net. In my opinion he uses a long term approach, not just "now". Just do your research and choose the doctor you feel is the best match for you. and 7k is pretty low for a transplant. I'm guess you don't need too many grafts. Quick questions though, how old are you and do you have any pics to share?

Happy growing Joe. I'm the guy that was getting washed up when you were being transplanted. You told me "Thats a good looking hairline" I have a question though. Tomorrow will mark the 7th day since the procedure. Is it safe to wear a hat where the hat comes in contact with the newly transplanted hairs? I want to make sure I do as much as possible to have the best growth so I'll wear the hat all big and floppy if needed but I'd prefer to wear it normal. Also, shoudl I still be sleeping with my travel pillow on my back or can start sleeping on my side?

really not a whole lot you can do. Just get a good night sleep the night before and prepare for a fairly long day on operation day. The biggest thing for me is recovery time. Just make sure you give yourself adequate time for the recovery process. Theres plenty of stuff that people covered in their personal diaries that I completely over looked becuase I didnt think it was much improtance. but now that I'm a week out, I'm start to experience it first hand.

Huge improvement! Those curly hair characteristics work wonders.

on my post op instruction sheet, it says after 5 days you may see hairs coming off with the scrabs which is perfectly normal, that the cell which produces the hair is surviing in your head by now.

I had surgery last monday and according to the Dr. swelling is a 50/50 chance. I had minor swelling but never ballooned up like many people.

No, as I said, my hair has good characteristics. The 2 pics show my hair at its very worst and at its very best. It was getting harder and harder to maintain a non-balding look. I'd have to check on it often to make sure the balding areas were covered well by the supporting hair. I never tried any concealers, though I wish I had. Maybe I could have pushed this transplant off a couple more years. At any rate, the reverse is in full effect. I was sorting through some old pics from 6-7 ears ago, when my I feel my hair style was at its best, & from what I can tell the placement of Dr. Hassons transplanted hairs almost matches it to a T. As long as the density is good, I'll be thrilled come summer time

razor blade. I bought and tried the pill cutter and it was too difficult to accurately cut them. My GF cut about 30 days worth in minutes using a razor

Honestly, I wish I had shaved my head prior but at this point its too late, people would notice and ask to see it. If you want to shave, do it prior so people can get used to seeing you with a shaved head.. I typically wear a hat so I plan to do that until my hair evens out a bit or until the shaved native hair comes back. I plan to keep this procedure a secret from anyone other than you guys and my gf. From my before pics it looks like my hairloss is super bad, which it might be. I dont know if its the texture of my hair or what, but I when I style my hair with typical styling products ( no concealer) I can still pull of a decent look so i dont think many people would notice a the transplant. Heres one of my passport pics from about 10 days ago and another pic from the 18th of last month. Its clear my temples are going but the rest looks decent.

Thanks for the positive feedback. I have my photos online I'm trying to link my album so you guys can see what I was working with. Multiplier- I didnt shave but he shave me once I got there. Once I get my pics up you can see exactly what was cut. I think its easier for him to make his incisions without the native hairs in the way.

great results

Quick facts: 27 year old male Losing hair since late teens sitting somewhere between nw2 and 3 on the scale. Naturally high forehead. 2500-3000 was the recommendation after the online and in person consultation. 2962, I believe, is what was harvested. Just started finasteride to hopefully maintain existing hair. Yikes! I just re-read this and its suuuuper long. Well guys, I did it! I finally took the plunge! I'm currently 27 and hair loss has bothered me for 7-8 years now. I've been able to manage my original hair style, but it was deff. becoming more difficult to pull it off. I knew I didn't want to have a transplant too young but @ 27 I felt like now was an appropriate time based on the progress of my loss and age. I've been on the boards for years, mainly as a lurker reading others diaries. I've always appreciated following a good diary that shared the transplant experience in as much detail as possible, so I figure the least I could do is give that in return to the community. I've done extensive research over the years. Initially I had my mind set on Dr. Armani. This was far back when my hair loss was VERY minimal and I didn't even need a transplant. I had a few online consultations and all of the Dr.'s BUT him suggested holding off for a while as hair loss was too minimal. Fast forward to earlier this year. I really started looking into a transplant and had my mind set on H&W. Over the years I've seen result after result and knew what they produce. I got in contact with Joe, then Doug to try and set this up. I really wanted to have the procedure april-mayish but with my work schedule and not having a passport, that was pretty impossible. I continued to keep in contact with Doug. I wanted to have the procedure done no later than October/November as that would put the 9 month mark right at the beginning of the summer. Many thanks to Doug; I feel like he really worked with me to get the ball rolling. Luckily I was only about a 5 hour drive away from Canada, so travelling was a breeze. I brought my family up Saturday and we turned the first part of the trip into a mini-vacation. It was also nice having the comfort of my family there with me. Surgery day: As usual I was late! Only about 5 minutes though =] I filled out the standard paperwork and made my payment. One of the technicians brought me back and had me change into my surgery shirt and slippers. She also took my blood pressure and did a quick check on my laxity. She said everything looked good and that the doctor would be with me shortly to have my consultation. Dr Hasson came in a few minutes later. He checked my hair and his first remark was, "oh yeah, we can fix this no problem." I was pretty happy after that. He also checked my laxity and snapped some pre-op pics. I was always concerned with what if: my loss is too bad and he suggest to hold off for now or if my donor availability isn't enough to have a transplant and I'm not a good candidate. We didn't really talk much about expectations. He said he was going to draw the hairline how he thought it should look, give me a mirror, and let me share my thoughts. It took a good 10-15 minutes before he felt confident with the placement. At first I felt it was a little off. He made a small adjustment and even though i still felt it wasn't perfect, I agreed with it. Looking at it now, the placement is perfect, at least in my opinion. Even after checking it out at the hotel I thought "hmm, that looks a little off"...but after looking at my post op pics, I couldn't be happier. For the most part, the entire process was painless. Getting numb was the only discomfort I experienced. I think its partially because you can hear the needle cracking through the thick scalp which makes it seem worse than it is [i wanted to wrap my arm around the technicians leg for comfort..haha]. The strip extraction was completely painless and took around an hour. As the technicians were dissecting the strip, the doctor started making his incisions for the graft placement. He gave me one of those metal clicker counter things and asked that on every 100th incision I click it once. On the 27th click we were finished. He said it was physically impossible to insert any more grafts, that they were packed together as close as possible and they would have to double up the remainder of the grafts. At this point it was around 10:30 and I was moved into another room where the graft insertion began. This part was pretty much me sitting in a chair, watching movies, taking a stretch break every hour or so, and a lunch break at noon. Of course on every break I went to the bathroom to check the progress. Around 2:30-3:00 the techs were done inserting all of the grafts. I was given a post op bag with meds, my post op instructions and my stylish new hat =] The night of the surgery I fell asleep with no issues. I didn't need the pain meds, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to take them. I slept from 11'ish all the way until 7 the following morning. I don't think I woke up once throughout the night. That morning everything looked great. I had no seepage from the donor area and the grafts looked to be doing well. We packed our luggage and headed for my first wash.The visit was fairly brief. One of the technicians washed my hair and the Doc came to check on everything. I was given a little reminder on the post op instructions and sent on my way. Crossing the boarder was no problem. Seriously took 5 minutes. No line, just a couple questions when we got to the booth and we were back in the states. I rode shotgun the whole way back and was even able to sleep part of the way. For some reason the trip back seemed faster than the trip there. Let me tell ya, It was nice to get home! The first night I slept a little better than last night. I normally sleep on my side so its difficult adjusting to my back but my gf has our bed set up nicely with a wall of pillows on either side of me so I don't roll over. She's SUPER SUPER cautious for me and every time I move she wakes up and asks if I'm OK. My first wash on my own was pretty nerve racking. I want to make sure I don't cause any harm to my new best friends. This is my 3rd day post op and I'm just taking it easy and plan to continue that for the next few days. I will say that I'm anxious to get past this delicate stage where I can sleep and shower normally. Dealing with it is no problem, the consequence of something happening is the biggest fear. I have some minor swelling on forehead and the top of my head is a bit numb but other than that everything seems to be going great. I plan to make a several updates within the next few weeks then shy off to about once or twice a month. Let me know if you guys have any questions Sorrry for writing a book guys, I figured the more about the procedure and the process I share the better for potential patients that are interested in having a procedure. In a closing note, I want to say Dr. Hasson and his team were nothing short of amazing. I felt completely comfortable and confident through the entire process. I think with a transplant you have to have realistic expectations, otherwise you're setting your self up for disappointment from the gate. I wasn't going in there searching for my teenage hairline. All I want is a natural age appropriate head of hair that I can style and go out and enjoy life with and I truly believe that's what I'll get. Big thanks to the doctor and all the staff. October, 4th 2010 marks the start of a new beginning.